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In this essay, the author attempts to realise two different and not completely complementary objectives. On the one hand, his intention is to familiarise readers with the dynamics of Catalan history over time, as well as with the ways in which Catalan historians in particular have helped to shape and determine Catalan nationalist discourse. On the other hand, the author has tried to question the obsessively political nature of both national and nationalist historiography, and the numerous contradictions involved, especially when the object of study is as imprecise as any political projection or desire.

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What is happening in Catalonia? This is a commonly asked question, abroad and in Spain. Even Catalans are often bewildered by the fast tide of events surrounding the pro-independence movement and its contradictions. Local answers not only tend to be partial, and loaded with special-pleading, but present a complexity of intricate detail that is hard to follow for anyone not in living in Catalonia and very attentive to the flow of politics in the media. Spanish observers, as a rule threatened by ongoing events and therefore hostile, simplify to an extreme that can be obtuse. The author, not a native Catalan, is an historian specialized in the study of Catalan nationalism. He has taught in Barcelona universities for more than forty years, usually in the Catalan language. Contrarian by nature, he has tried hard to remain outside the partisan trenches, to avoid both the pressure of the often heavy-handed nationalist lobby and the counter-pressure that marks the discourse of persecution of the most outraged Spanish opposition. In his contribution here, Enric Ucelay-Da Cal presents a narrative in terms of party politics and the social trends that political organizations try to channel and represent.